Sin of Damnation - Gav Thorpe Page 10

  Space and time took on a new perspective, all emotion drained from his soul. He was timeless, endless, immortal. One of countless billions, a mote in a hurricane of minds. Fleeting yet eternally reborn. The broodmind linked him to the other things, sharing his thoughts, his hunger, his instinct to reproduce and grow.

  But they were not his thoughts. They were alien. Calistarius could not sense where he ended and the broodmind began. He struggled to resist. He felt a tugging on the edge of his personality, a great psychic beacon that flared in every direction. It was like the Astronomican he used to guide ships through the warp, yet far weaker and far fouler. It was a cancer, now small, much reduced by the deaths the brood had suffered.

  He realised that far out in the depths of space there were other dark beacons, other broodminds. And something larger. Something that swallowed everything in its path. Something mankind had never seen before. Impossibly distant and impossibly ancient. A shadow in the warp.

  The connection broke and Calistarius found himself looking at the broodlord's face, barely half a metre from him. It was transfixed on a glowing blue blade and Calistarius realised the light in the creature's eyes were not of life, but simply reflections from the humming power sword.

  Lorenzo pulled his sword free from the creature and it slumped to the ground. The sergeant then proceeded to calmly and methodically chop off its remaining three arms, both its legs and, finally, its head.

  'Just to be sure,' Lorenzo explained. His left arm hung uselessly by his side and he stood with a strange stoop. A warning tone sounded from the sensorium. Another wave of genestealers had been following the Broodlord and was now barely twenty meues away.

  Lorenzo turned towards them and awkwardly raised his sword. The Librarian sheathed his own weapon and turned the sergeant to face him, 'This is victory,' Calistarius said, holding up the tissue sample.

  'After you,' said Lorenzo, pointing his sword towards the open exhaust shaft.

  The Librarian clambered through the hatchway while Lorenzo opened fire at the approaching aliens.

  'Time to leave, sergeant,' said Calistarius.

  Lorenzo hesitated, gunning down another genestealer. He wanted to stay and fight. He wanted to kill more of the foe. His every instinct told him not to turn away and leave. It felt too much like a retreat. The Angel had given his life for the Blood Angels and Lorenzo could do no less.

  With a parting shot, Lorenzo pushed himself into the exhaust duct.

  To live and fight again, to remember the sacrifice made this day and six hundred years ago, that was true victory. To survive and allow the memories to live on when so many had not, that was the ultimate triumph.

  There was no failure in that.

  Sanguis Irae

  Peace.

  An almost impossible moment for one who had been raised in the hell of Baal’s radioactive deserts and who had spent a lifetime waging war against the foes of the Emperor, cursed by psychic powers so that even outside battle there was ever a contest to keep out the clamour of the warp and the minds of his fellow Space Marines.

  Here there was nothing. Alone on the boarding torpedo, there was not even a pilot to disturb Calistarius’s contemplation. All was still. The torpedo’s launch provided enough silent momentum to carry the one-way transport across the few hundred kilometres of void to the Blood Angels Librarian’s destination.

  No thoughts, no noise, just the barest murmur of background hum from the resonance of the warp itself.

  The peace brought clarity.

  Calistarius knew better than to fill this moment with distracting thoughts – concerns over the mission he was about to embark upon, ideas of higher philosophies or idle contemplation of the latest Chapter rumours and news.

  He focused on himself and nothing else. A mote of life encased in a ferrolene and ceramite cylinder drifting across the vacuum of space, infinitesimally insignificant to the universe. He enjoyed the feeling of pointlessness. For just a few minutes Calistarius was totally freed from care. His righteous burden awaited him, but until the boarding torpedo plunged through the metal skin of the space hulk marked SA-BA-325 he was free from all responsibility and expectation.

  His breaths came slowly, inhaling and exhaling in slow rhythm with the beating of his twin hearts, a soft after-shudder in his chest as his third lung inflated with a slight delay. His cardio-pulmonary system was a simple but enchanting quintet piece, occasionally accompanied by a solo percussion creak or ping from the hull of the boarding torpedo.

  Calistarius had not known music as a child. The closest that the tribes of Baal Secundus came to orchestration was war drums and pyre dirges. It was only when he had passed the trials of the Blood Angels and become a son of Sanguinius that young Calistarius had learnt of instruments – of flute and riola, violin and helleschord, pantache and cymbal.

  Before that discovery he had never heard the music inherent in the universe, not until he had been played symphonies composed to emulate the vast array of nature’s moods. He had listened with delight, his mind’s ear turning screeching chords to the howl of the Baal winds, the petulant percussion of tom-toms converted to the drumming foot beats of a carrion-reaper charging over the dunes.

  A gift from the Blood Angels – civilisation. Art in all its forms: poetic, literary, visual and military. The legacy of mighty Sanguinius, that the deformed, radiation-scarred vagrants of the deserts could be lifted above their station and turned into demigods. Not just a physical transformation, but a mental, cultural uplifting as well. To be defenders of humanity one needed not only bolters and power armour, but a sense of what was so important that it required the keenest sacrifice. The boons of giant physique and razor-sharp mind were simply part of the exchange. In return, every Blood Angel would give his life and death in service to the Emperor and the Imperium of Mankind he had created.

  A new, harsh sound ripped into Calistarius’s thoughts, dragging him out of his reverie. Arrestor engines screamed into life, jolting the torpedo with fierce deceleration for a few seconds before the melta-charges in the tip exploded into life, tearing the hull of the space hulk to allow the energy-shielded prow to punch through.

  More detonations followed as the front of the torpedo petalled outwards, forming an air seal and disembarkation ramp. Calistarius was free of his harness and on his feet even before the torpedo had finished moving. The moment the splay of the torpedo’s tip was wide enough, he ducked through the opening portal and leapt down to the deck two metres below.

  He checked his bearings and located the initial exploratory squad’s position on a wrist-mounted auspex. They were about three hundred metres away, deeper within the structure of the hulk where teleportation was far riskier. Calistarius already had his bolt pistol in his left hand. He pulled free a power sword with the right and set off, all senses alert to possible attack.

  The clank of his boots echoed harshly from metal bulkheads, ringing strangely from the buckled material of the outer hull. A broken ventilator fan whickered close at hand, letting forth a scraping snarl every few seconds. Something clattered above the ceiling like a spoon rattling against the bottom of a ration tin: an old pump, perhaps.

  The thrum of the power blade springing into life added another noise to the mix.

  There was no symphony here. No peace.

  War had returned.

  Calistarius encountered the first of the initial landing squad guarding a cross-junction two hundred metres from where the Librarian’s boarding torpedo had breached. Brother Santiago’s Terminator armour almost filled the corridor as he turned one way and then the other, his storm bolter held at the ready. Santiago acknowledged his battle-brother’s approach with a lifted power fist.

  ‘Nice of you to join us.’ Santiago’s attempt at humour masked an unease that Calistarius had sensed the moment he had laid eyes on the other Blood Angel. He did not have to be psychic to detect his battle-brother’s restlessness.

 
‘The… other warrior, he is still alive?’

  ‘Yes, brother. The strength of Sanguinius must truly flow in his veins, because very little blood does.’

  ‘Then I will not delay here any longer.’ Calistarius gave his companion a nod of respect as Santiago stepped aside to allow him to proceed down the corridor.

  Closing in on the rest of the squad, the Librarian saw that they had dispersed – two of the Terminators were at the target location beacon on the auspex, while the other two held strategic bottle-necks further along the deck. Calistarius headed straight for the objective location, noting the sensorium transponder signal of Sergeant Dioneas in the same chamber.

  There was only one way into and out of the room, until recently sealed tight. The scorched, buckled marks of claws and lasers marred the door and the wall around the locking mechanism, but override codes had pried open what the brute strength of the unknown assailants had not.

  The inside of the chamber was lit only by the suit lights of Dioneas and Brother Marciano; the latter stepped away from the door as he saw Calistarius approaching, allowing the Librarian to see inside.

  The sergeant stood over another figure in bulky Terminator armour, slumped against the far bulkhead. Calistarius knew what to expect but still experienced a moment of pause when he saw the Blood Angels livery painted on the ancient suit of armour. Worse still were the many gashes in the heavy war-plate. Much of the suit had been ripped away, the endo-skeletal struts and fibre bundles twisted and tattered by immense tears.

  Dioneas shifted as the Librarian entered and for a moment his suit light played across the face of the injured Blood Angel. His mouth was locked in a bestial snarl, lips drawn back to expose dark gums, eyes glaring, glinting fiercely in the passing light.

  In the moment of contact Calistarius felt madness. Deep, utter hatred and bloodlust surged into the Librarian’s thoughts, pounding upon his mind like hammer blows.

  Calistarius closed his mind off in an instant, shielding himself from the sensation as though it were an attack.

  ‘You know what this is?’ Dioneas’s voice was quiet over the vox-link.

  ‘Of course,’ said Calistarius. ‘The signs are obvious. Why did you request my presence, brother-sergeant?’

  ‘Our initial landing and sweep detected nothing,’ the sergeant explained. ‘It was only when we were preparing to expand to a secondary perimeter that we detected the heat source of his tactical dreadnought suit. This is exactly how we found him, locked inside this empty armoury magazine.’

  ‘And you wish me to delve into his thoughts?’ Calistarius kept his gaze fixed on the sergeant, not willing yet to look at the contorted features of the collapsed Space Marine. ‘What do you hope I will find there?’

  ‘Anything,’ whispered Dioneas, turning his bulky armour to look at the prone Blood Angel. The suit lights caught the jagged edges of the rips in the adamantium, flared from the shattered plates of ceramite and glistened on exposed flesh and bone. ‘Who he is, why he is here, what did this to him.’

  ‘You have no hint of his identity?’

  ‘His suit transponder is dead. No markings, nothing we can use, have been left on his armour.’

  ‘Why have you not transported him back to the battle-barge?’

  ‘Does it look to you that he would survive such a journey?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Calistarius. ‘What is the current tactical situation? Clearly he was attacked by something.’

  ‘No life signs detected by the primary surveyor sweep and nothing on the sensorium until we found… this.’ Dioneas took a step toward the door. ‘It will be just the six of us for now. Captain Raphael is not prepared to send in the main wave until we have a better idea of what they might run into. As soon as you can confirm whether there is a credible threat aboard or not, the sooner our reinforcements will arrive.’

  Calistarius nodded. ‘I shall endeavour to conclude this swiftly.’

  The other two Blood Angels left the room. Dioneas stood guard at the door while Marciano moved out further to reinforce the perimeter defence. Calistarius looked at the broad back of the sergeant standing outside for a while, wondering if he should ask him to return. The Blood Angel they had found was in some kind of catatonic coma, but there was no way to predict what would happen when Calistarius began his psychic probing.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he said after considering the matter, ‘I would prefer it if you kept watch on… on my subject. While I am inside his mind I will be vulnerable if he strikes out.’

  ‘As you wish, brother,’ said Dioneas.

  When the sergeant stepped back into the chamber the lights of his war-plate glinted from the splintered tines of the fallen Space Marine’s lightning claws. There was dried blood – not his own – splashed along their length. Calistarius crouched to examine them more closely.

  ‘I noticed that too,’ said Dioneas. ‘If his claws had been functioning, the energy sheath would have vaporised any exposed liquid.’

  ‘He carried on fighting even after his claws stopped working,’ concluded Calistarius. ‘Curious, but not surprising. If he was gripped by… If the gene-curse had possessed him he would have no control over his actions. He would fight until dead.’

  ‘So why is he still alive?’

  ‘Perhaps he killed all his foes?’

  ‘Leaving no evidence of them for us to find?’

  ‘How would he have had the presence of mind to lock himself in here, if the Black Rage had him?’

  ‘You ask the same questions that provoked my call for assistance,’ Dioneas said pointedly. He gestured towards the near-dead Blood Angel. ‘He has the answers.’

  Reaching out hesitantly, his pistol holstered, Calistarius laid a hand on the mortally wounded Space Marine. He almost flinched at an imagined response, but the dormant Blood Angel did not move, not even a flicker of the eyes. He looked physically dead but there was enough anima left in his Terminator armour to sustain vital functions.

  He reached with his mind also, sensing that the soul of the warrior was still intact. The Librarian had his psychic defences fully prepared. Physical contact was not necessary to dig into the dying warrior’s thoughts, but Calistarius hoped the Blood Angel would feel it somehow and gain a sense of comfort before his mind was peeled apart by the Librarian.

  Calistarius looked at the mess of armour and torn flesh and pondered Dioneas’s analysis. It seemed that the Space Marine was certainly in a state of suspended animation, and the activation of the sus-an membrane could be triggered instinctively at the verge of death. However, the curse, the Black Rage as it was known amongst the Blood Angels, was an all-encompassing bloodthirst. Those who succumbed to the flaw of the Chapter wanted nothing but oblivion, consumed by inner agony and anger. Once the Black Rage took hold of a warrior, death was the only release.

  ‘Who are you?’ Calistarius whispered, moving his hand from the broken shoulder plate to the cheek of the fallen warrior. He opened his thoughts and asked the question again, allowing the response to flow back from the inert form of the Blood Angel.

  SLAYER!

  The raw strength of the Black Rage hit Calistarius and though he had been expecting it, at the moment of contact he shared the deepest loathing and despair that fuelled the warrior beneath his fingers. He wanted to kill until he was killed, uncaring of any other action or fate.

  The Librarian wrestled himself free, forming a ball of pure consciousness like ice amidst the flaming maelstrom of anger. The ice was melting slowly as the rage lapped at it, but in turn its presence cooled the surrounding fire, allowing Calistarius to send tendrils of interrogation into the Blood Angel’s mind, trickling them in like water.

  He encountered memory, and upon examining it relived it as his own.

  Aboard the Arch-traitor’s battle-barge. The strike force had been scattered and there was no sign of the Emperor or Rogal Dorn. Some
of his warriors were with him, nine from his honour guard in scarlet and gilded armour. The communications network was a cacophony of screams and urgent situation reports, overlaid with horrific cackling and demented braying.

  A drop of blood fell on his cheek. His eye was drawn up to the ceiling. There was a Space Marine trapped there, inverted, having reconstituted halfway into the material of the ship itself. One leg and arm hung from the metal as his life fluid seeped along lines of rust like artificial veins. He thrashed for a moment and then fell limp.

  ‘My lord!’ One of the honour guard was demanding his attention. He dragged his gaze away from the contorted body above. ‘What are your orders, Lord Sanguinius?’

  It was wrong. These were not real memories. Calistarius pushed through them, ignoring the tide of longing that flooded through him as he touched the soul of Sanguinius and felt emptiness and loss.

  The surge of disorientation from teleportation dies away, leaving him in a half-flooded corridor. The rest of the squad are close at hand on the sensorium and the sergeant calls off names to ensure they have all arrived.

  ‘Vespesario?’

  ‘Present, brother-sergeant,’ he responds, forging through the thigh-high water towards a broken bulkhead to his right. ‘Starting security sweep.’

  ‘Vespesario,’ Calistarius croaked, pulling himself back through the demented ravings that roiled like storm clouds across the other Blood Angel’s thoughts. The Librarian looked up at Sergeant Dioneas. ‘Brother Vespesario. You should check with the data-cogitators on the battle-barge.’

  ‘No need,’ replied the sergeant. He sighed heavily. ‘There have been only a few brothers named Vespesario in the history of the First Company. I know which one this is.’

  ‘I also have a recollection of code-name: Omen of Despair. A space hulk called Omen of Despair.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Dioneas. ‘It was discovered in the Verium Placus belt near the Ordanio system, two hundred and forty-six years ago. That is nearly seventeen thousand light years away. Two First Company squads went aboard for primary reconnaissance. The wreck unexpectedly dropped back into warp space almost as soon as they boarded. All ten warriors and suits of battleplate were lost, presumed destroyed.’